People don’t just wake up and decide to change their lives. They don’t just one day decide to throw it all up in the air on a whim. There is no out of the blue. All of a sudden doesn’t just come along.

Sure, there’s a moment when you’re in something and then you’re no longer in it. When you cross over the threshold. But really crossing over is a series of stages. You’re part in, you’re part out. Then you’re less in than you’re out. And then you’re just out. Over. Done.

It may seem on the outside to have just happened, but there is a path, a very well-trodden one, that stretches out endlessly towards change. It’s a very lonely path and one that leads to you have no idea where. It calls to you, even though it mystifies. In fact, it terrifies, as much as it excites. It feels right and wrong in equal measure. For a while you’ll deny it. Hide. Pretend it isn’t there. Fight it. Avoid it. Turn and go in the other direction. But it’s too late. You’ve seen it. Even if you never step one foot onto that path, you are forever changed simply because you now know it’s there.

One day I realised I was on that path. I wasn’t at the start or even anywhere near the end, just on it. If there was a ‘one day’, an ‘out of the blue’, an ‘all of a sudden’, it was simply the day I realised I was heading in a direction. And it wasn’t where I had set off for. I didn’t quite know where I was going, but I accepted things were afoot, and that when I got to wherever “there” was, life might look quite different.

In reality when I look back I can see many moments where the path was trying to reveal itself, despite my resistance.

A conversation with my best friend where we looked at each other and just knew. Learning that all was not going to be OK in the end for someone I loved. Walking along the beach countless times unable to tell where the sea spray ended and my tears began. Being on holiday and wanting to escape to anywhere in the world but there. Lying in bed aching for something but not knowing what it was. A series of torturous and beautiful stepping stones. Months, if not years, of battling myself and my demons in a private ring, while the outside world looked on oblivious to the turbulence brewing.

And the moment when I relented? When I finally saw the path open up and I consciously joined my journey? It was at the foot of a mountain in Cumbria. I was there on a retreat having fooled myself into some story about researching retreats. The truth being I needed a space where I could feel brave. I had an inkling I was reaching a tipping point. I’d been flirting more and more with ‘what ifs’ and generally living in a state of fear as a result. Exhausted and in need of self-care, that weekend was exactly where I needed to be. Someone once told me that you make the decisions you need to make, when you’re ready to make them. I went to that weekend because I was ready. Ready to give up the fight.

One of the weekend’s tasks was to think of something we wanted to let go of and something we wanted to happen. Simple enough. Then we’d gather around a fire and watch our hopes and fears go up in flames, as we manifested change. I have to admit I was somewhat cynical. I’d been carrying some heafty emotional baggage for so long, that I couldn’t believe I would ever be freed. But having invested in the process I took myself off for a walk to have a serious think.

What did I want from life? And therefore what did I need to let go of?

This was the conversation I’d been avoiding for a very long time. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more scared, emotionally, than I did heading out that afternoon.

Only when isolated on a moor, sat on the side of a mountain path, did I find the sanctuary needed to safely look up and see what lay before me. My future so crystal clear. Who was in it. Who wasn’t. Who I was, who I could be. Joyful. At peace. Living with ease. Pages and pages came to life describing a life rich in happiness and alignment. It was possible after all. I could see it. It was in writing. It existed. My senses were so heightened and emotions raw. Fear. Pride. Hurt. Love. So much love. So many tears, but of happiness. Such a yearning for that future, it was overwhelming. Hope and faith that one day, just one day, this risk I was about to take would pay off. Trusting in myself. Trusting in the universe.

Finally, the truth. Whispered at first, and then louder and louder, until it was deafening. I was sat on that mountainside outwardly silent, inwardly screaming. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry”. Sorry to those who did not want me to change. Did not want me to move on. Did not want to be without me. Who loved me. Sorry to myself. For taking so long to listen. To that voice that had been trying to reach out to me for so long. Sorry for all those lost years. For all the promises broken. For the future that would never be realised. Sorry for everything.

My bravest, most honest, most private moment.

On that mountainside. I had finally turned inwards and admitted I felt how I felt. On paper that seems like such a trivial thing. But believe me it wasn’t. I’d denied it for so long. I couldn’t even tell what was the truth or the lie in my life anymore. So much self-doubt carried around every day. The relief at acknowledging my reality was immense. It was no one’s fault. It was just the way it was.

And in that moment a weight lifted and a switch flicked. A new mode of being was firing up then and there. Taking hold, seemingly in an instant, but really a dimly-lit flame, that had been biding its time, waiting for the heat to be turned up, was starting to burn as bright as it knew it could all along.

As I turned to head back the way I had come, I knew things would never be the same again. I was changed. And so was everything else. I had seen it now. There was really no going back, there was only moving forward on this new path.